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EvARTs BoUTK-LL Greexe, Ph. D. 
Professor of history in the University of Illinois 



[Separate No. 143] 

Some Aspects of Politics in the Middle 
West, 1860-72 

By Evarts Boutell Greene, Ph. D. 



r Frcm the Prccecdirgs of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin for 191 1, 

pages 60-76] 



Madison 

Published by the Society 

1912 



■qrf 



Some Aspects of Politics in the 
Middle West, 1860-72 



By Evarts Boutell Greene, Ph. D. 

In a recent article in the American Historical Review on the 
name Republican, Prof. William A. Dunning of Columbia Uni- 
versity has made an interesting contribution to the history of 
party polities in the United States. Referring to the contem- 
porary party which bears that name, Mr. Dunning maintains 
that, whether judged by "principles," "personal," "name,** 
or ' ' all three combined, ' ' the continuity of the Republican party 
since 1854 is at least doubtful.^ In maintaining this thesis it is 
pointed out that the Republican party was founded on a fusion 
of elements drawn from different political parties ; that during 
the years of the Civil War it was merged into a still more com- 
prehensive fusion, Avhich deliberately abandoned the name Re- 
publican for that of Union party ; that when the war was ended, 
there developed, during the reconstruction era, an entirely new 
alignment of parties, having very little relation, whether in per- 
sonnel or principles, to the a7ite helium alignment between Re- 
publicans and Democrats. 

It is my purpose in this paper to examine the validity of this 
hypothesis as applied to the political situation in the Middle 
West during the years from 1S60 to 1872. Since limitations of 
time and space prevent adequate treatment of the whole field, 
I have confined myself to the states of Illinois and Wisconsin 
which, taken together, offer conditions fairly typical of the 
Northwest as a whole — conditions varying from the border-state 
society of "Egypt" to the "Yankee" commiunities of northern 



1 Amer. Hist. Review, xvi, pp. 56 ff. 

[ 60 1 : 

__ __... _ _ lii.iv'V./L.. 



Aspects of Politics in the Middle West 

Illinois and Wisconsin. Even with these limitations I find myself 
iorced to draw my illustrations more largely than I could wish 
from my own state (Illinois). 

We may begin with the fundamental fact that the Republican 
party here, as elsewhere, was the product of a coalition which 
included AVhigs, Democrats, and the radical " come-outers " of 
the old Liberty and Free-soil parties. The Whig contribution 
to the coalition has received a very natural emphasis, partly be- 
cause the secession from the Whig party was on such a scale 
as to involve the complete destruction of that organization, 
partly also because of the unique position which one of the Whig 
leaders, Abraham lancoln, came to hold in the Republican party. 
Besides Lincoln, the Whigs of central and southern Illinois 
contributed a number of notable figures to the early Republican 
party : Orville H. Browning, who opposed Stephen A. Douglas 
as a Whig candidate for Congress in the earlj^ forties, but be- 
came in 1856 a conspicuous figure in the first Republican state 
convention, and in 1861 the Republican successor of Douglas in 
the Senate of the United States ; Richard Yates, a Whig congress- 
man during the compromise debates of 1850, and subsequently 
the first war governor of Illinois; and David Davis, who was 
perhaps the most intimate of Lincoln's lieutenants in the politi- 
cal game of 1860. All of these men, with Lincoln himself, were 
born in the state of Henry Clay and shared in large measure the 
political traditions of which he was the most distinguished ex- 
ponent. Less striking in personality perhaps, but more numer- 
ous, were the Yankee Whigs of northern Illinois and Wisconsin 
— ^such men as the Washburne brothers, one in Illinois and one 
in Wisconsin, and Bjishford. the first Republican governor of 
Wisconsin. 

Yet if we except Lincoln, the Democratic contribution to the 
leadership of the original Republican organization seems even 
more significant. In June, 185G, Ihe Chicago Democrat (news- 
paper), referring to the first Republican state convention which 
had just then been held at Bloomington, asserted that the ma- 
jority of the delegates to that convention and the majority of 
the nominees had voted for Franklin Pierce in 1852.^ Easily 
first in this group was Lyman Trumbull, for nearly twenty 



2 Chicago Democrat, June 7, 1856. 

[61] 



Wisconsin Historical Society 

years a Democratic politician of some repute before he began his 
more distinguished career as a Jeader of the Anti-Nebraska Dem- 
ocrats and the first Eepublicau senator from Illinois. Of Dem- 
ocratic affiliations were also I^ong John Wentworth, for five 
terms Democratic representative of the Chicago district in the 
national House, but in 1856 an ardent member of the Blooming- 
ton Republican convention ; John M. Palmer, the chairman of 
that convention; Gustav Koerner, the German- American, who 
having been elected lieutenant-governor on the Pierce ticket in 
1852, led a great body of German voters in their secession from 
the Democratic to the Republican party, and in 1858 presided 
over the Republican convention which made Mr. Lincoln the 
senatorial nominee against Douglas. The Wisconsin Democrats 
contributed J. R. Doolittle and the two war governors, Randall 
and Salomon. Side by side with these seceders from the "Whig 
and Democratic ranks, there were a few veterans who had fol- 
lowed the forlorn hope of the old Liberty party — such men as 
Charles Durkee of Wisconsin, and Owen Lovejoy, whose radi- 
cal abolitionism was regarded with some misgiving by his asso- 
ciates of Whig and Democratic antecedents.^ 

In these differences of Whig and Democratic antecedents, the 
Republican leaders of the fifties found one of their most difficult 
problems, and their opponents one of the most promising lines of 
attack. The effort of Douglas to make political capital out of 
this situation is illustrated by a passage from his speech at Free- 
port in 1856 : * 

Up to 1854 the Old Whig party and the Democratic party had stood 
on a common platform so far as this slavery question was concerned. 
* * * The compromise measures of 1850 were introduced by Clay, 
were defended by Webster, and supported by Cass, and were approved 
l3y Fillmore, and sanctioned by the national men of both parties. They 
constituted a common plank upon which both Whigs and Democrats 
stood. * * * In ig54^ after the death of Clay and Webster, Mr. 
Lincoln, on the part of the Whigs, undertook to Abolitionize the Whig 
party by dissolving it, transferring the members into the Abolition 



3 For verification of these and other personal data, I am indebted to 
Charles M. Thompson, assistant in history at the University of Illinois. 
The range of the material used is such that it is not practicable to 
indicate it fully in the footnotes to this paper. 

4 Lincoln, Works (ed. 1894), i, p. 322. 

[62] 



Aspects of Politics in the Middle West 

camp and making them train under Giddings, Fred Douglass, Lovejoy, 
Chase, Farnswortli, and other Abolition leaders. Trumbull undertook 
to dissolve the Democratic party by taking old Democrats into the 
Abolition camp. Mr. Lincoln v/as aided in his efforts by many leading 
Whigs throughout the State — your member of Congress, Mr. Wash- 
burne, being oae of the most active. Trumbull was aided by many 
renegades from the Democratic party, among whom were John Went- 
worth, Tom Turner, and others with whom you are familiar. 

An important elemeut in the early Republican organization in 
both states was the Gennan-Ameriean population, which in 
former years had been attracted to the Democratic party as the 
best means of protection against the supposed nationalistic 
tendencies of the TVhigs. . Attracted to the Republican part3' 
by its stand .af>'ainst the extension of slavery, the Germans 
showed at times a natural sensitiveness on all points affecting 
the rights of foreign-born citizens, and from time to time ques- 
tions arose which tended to alienate them from some of their 
Republican associates of Whig or American antecedents,^ The 
chief distinction betvreen Wisconsin and Illinois is perhaps tho 
difference in the sectional origin of the native American voters. 
Tn Wisconsin nearly all of the conspicuous leaders of the new 
party — governors, senators, representatives in Congress, were 
natives of New York or New England. The same thing was 
true of the northern Illinois districts; but in central and south- 
ern Illinois the Republican party drew some of its most aggres- 
sive leaders from the southern-born population, which included, 
besides Lincoln himself, two of the first three Republican sena- 
tors from Illinois, and three of the first four Republican govern- 
ors. 

This phenomenon Avas characterized from a hostile point of 
view b}^ Stephen A, Douglas in a speech delivered at Jonesboro 
in southern Illinois during the great debates of 1858:^ 

The worst Abolitionists I have ever known in Illinois have been 
men who have sold their slaves in Alabama and Kentucky, and have 
come here and turned Abolitionists while spending the money got for 
the negroes they sold, and I do not know that an Abolitionist from 



5 See an interesting paper by Herriott, in 111, Hist. Soc. Transac- 
tions, 1911. 

6 Lincoln, Works, i, p. 366. 

[63] 



Wisconsin Historical Society 

Indiana or Kentucky ought to have any more credit because he was 
born and raised among slave-holders. I do not know that a native of 
Kentucky is more excusable because raised among slaves. His father 
and mother having owned slaves, he comes to Illinois, turns Aboli- 
tionist, and slanders the graves of his father and mother, and breathes 
curses upon the institutions under which he was born, and his father 
and mother bred. 

All, or nearly all, of the men so far referred to may be char- 
acterized as original Republicans of the vintage of 1856. With 
all of their differences in inherited traditions and previous po- 
litical affiliations, they were united in their opposition to the 
extension of slavery. During the period of Buchanan's ad- 
ministration, however, there was a considerable accession of new 
elements to the Republican party, partly, of course, as a result 
of immigration from abroad and from the Northeast, but partly 
also through the gradual conversion of moderate men who had 
not been prepared to. take part in the political revolution oi' 
1854-56. Among these there were, in Illinois and elsewhere, a 
considerable number of Whigs who had taken temporary refuge 
in the American party. Perhaps the most interesting member of 
this group today is the present senior senator from Illinois, 
Shelby ]\L Cullom, who was a candidate for presidential elector 
on the Fillmore ticket in 1856. In 1858, however, he was pre- 
pared to take cin active part in the campaign for Lincoln, and 
in 1861 was chosen Republican Speaker of the Illinois House 
of Representatives.''' 

Some hint as to the attitude of the moderate Democrats may 
perhaps be gathered from the statement made by Grant in hi.? 
Memoirs, definiiig his own position in the politics of the years be- 
tween 1856 and 1860. In 1856, he tells us that he voted for Bu- 
chanan, because he felt sure that the election of a Republican 
president meant the immediate secession of the slave States^ 
and he desired to postpone the shock involved in a Republican 
victory. At the time of the election of 1860 he was living in 
Galena, but had not been there long enough to have the right to 
vote. He declared.hovv^ever, that if liei ad voted he would 
have felt himself bound to vote for Douglas. He intimates 
that he felt a certain relief in escaping this responsibility, be- 



7 Illinois State Journal, passim. 

[64] 



Aspects of Politics in the Middle West 

cause, although feeling bound to vote for Douglas, he consid- 
ered the real contest to lie between Lincoln and Breckenridge, 
and of these two men he preferred Lincoln.^ It is not alto- 
gether easy, however, to tell how far this view of his own state 
of mind in 1860 was colored by his subsequent prominence in 
the Republican party. Another indication of the changes 
which were taking phice is to be found in the transfer, in 1860, 
to the Republican party of a few central Illinois counties which 
had in 1856 gone for Fillmore. 

With the increasing prosperity of the party there appeared 
also a sharp contrast between the views of radical and conserva- 
tive members, a contrast which appears clearly in the Republi- 
can representation of these two States in Congress during the 
critical winter of 1860-61. The three Republican senators — 
Trumbull, Durkee. and Doolittle — all voted for the famous Clark 
Resolution declaring that "The provisions of the c-onstitution 
are ample for the preservation of the union * * * it needs 
to be obeyed rather than amended," and the majority of the 
Republican representatives from Wisconsin and Illinois in the 
House displayed distinctly radical tendencies.^ A very different 
note, however, was struck by Congressman William Kellogg 
who represented the Peoria district, and introduced a consider- 
ably debated resolution proposing the revival of the Missouri 
Compromise line of 36° 30'. Kellogg held that the Republican 
party had its origin in the protest against the repeal of that 
compromise, the restoration of which would be in harmony with 
true Republican polic^^ Although some of his colleagues might 
"wander for a time in the dark paths of fanaticism." he was 
willing to rise above partisanship in order to save the Union. 
His three Republican colleagues in the House— Farnsworth, 
Lovejoy, and Washbume — were agreed in opposition to his com- 
promise project; and. as is Avell known, he had also to meet ths 
opposition of Lincoln. ^^ 

The story of the great uprising of Democrats and Re- 
publicans in support of the Union after the firing on Fort Sum- 



8U. S. Grant, Personal Memoirs (N. Y., 1885-86), i, pp. 214-217. 
9 36th Cong., 2d sess., Cong. Glolye, pt. 2, p, 1404. 

lojftid, app. pp. 192-196. Cf. W. E. Dodd, "The Fight for the North- 
west, 1860," in Amer. Hist. Review, xvi, pp. 774 ff. 

[65] 



Wisconsin Flistorical Society 

ter, is too familiar to need reliearsal here. It is important to 
note, however, that the Illinois and Wisconsin representatives 
at AVashington during the first haif of Lincoln's administration 
were, so far as they vvere Republican at all, men of the original 
.Republican group. All four senators from these States during' 
the greater part of the Thirty-seventh Congress were Republi- 
cans. Lyman Trumbull began his second term in 1861 ; and 
the vacancy left by the death of Douglas was filled by Orville H. 
Browning, a close friend and adviser of Lincoln, and a Repub- 
lican of somewhat conservative principles. Wisconsin was rep- 
resented in the Senate by Doolittle, a man of vigorous personal- 
ity and radical temper, who had served four years of his first 
term; and Timothy 0. Howe, who was just beginning his first 
lerm. All of these men had been associated from the beginning 
with the Anti-Nebraska Republican movement. The situation 
in the House was less simple. The Wisconsin delegation was 
solidly Republican, but five of the nine Illinois congressmen were 
Democrats. Notwithstanding a considerable Republican con- 
stituency in central and even southern Illinois this section of 
the state was left wholly without Republican representation 
in the House. Taking the House and Senate together, the 
whole group of Wisconsin and Illinois Republicans in the 
Thirty-seventh Congress, with one or possibly tVk'o exceptiong, 
were men of distinctly Yanhee antecedents; ten out of tvv-elvt* 
were natives of New York or New England. IMeasured by their 
real importance in the State organization, there was an ol)vi- 
ous over-representation of the Yankee Republicans of north- 
ern Illinois.^^ 

During the year 1862, there are clear evidences of dissatis- 
faction on the part of the Democrats with the disposition of 
the Republican leaders both state and national, to use their 
political power as a means of promoting distinctly Republican 
measures, especially on the subject of slavery. Under these 
circumstances there was a natural revival of party feeling, 
even on the part of Democrats who cannot fairly be called dis- 
loyal. Indications of such feeling appear in the Illinois con- 
stitutional convention of 1862, which was dominated by ele- 



11 Edward McPherson, Political History of the Rebellion (Washing- 
ton, 1865), p. 122. 

[66] 



Aspects of Politics in the Middle West 

merits hostile to the Republican administration in state and na- 
tional affairs. The most striking evidence, how6ver, is to be 
found in the elections of 1862, hekl immediately after the pre- 
liminary proclamation of emancipation,' which resulted in heavy 
loss to the Eepublican party, both in Illinois and Wisconsin. 

The Wisconsin Republicans retained their* control of the 
State administration, but the congressmen Avho had been unani- 
mously Republican in the Thirty-seventh Congress, were evenly 
divided in the Thirty-eighth, between Republicans and Demo- 
crats. In Illinois the situation was much more serious from 
the Republican point of view. The new apportionment gave 
Illinois fourteen instead of nine represenlfetives in the House; 
but of these fourteen representatives, only five were Republi- 
cans; all of the others were either Democrats, or voted regu- 
larly with the Democratic opposition. The area represented 
by Republican congressmen was, therefore, smaller than in any 
previous election since 1856 ; the southernmost county in- 
cluded in any Republican district was Peoria. On the other 
hand, the surviving Republican representatives were aggres- 
sive champions of anti-slavery principles. All of them, too, 
had been associated with the party from its foundation. In 
the Senate there' was less change than in the House; Trumbull 
and Plowe held over, DooHttle was reelected for a second term, 
but the new Illinois Legislature was Democratic and sent Doug- 
las's old lieutenant, Richardson, to succeed Browning in the 
Senate. Obviously, so far as Illinois and Wisconsin were con- 
cerned, the administration party in Congress was still distinct- 
ively Republican rather than Union in temper.^ ^ 

The disasters of 1862, however, impressed upon the more 
moderate leaders of the Republican party the absolute necessity 
of joining forces with the War Democrats in the broader Union 
movement. This attitude became very marked in the campaign 
of 1864, especially in Illinois, and was shown partly in a grow- 
ing disposition to recognize and use rnen who had not heretofore 
been affiliated with the Republican party. The administra- 
tion convention of 1864 in Illinois took the name of "Union," 
rather than Republican, and selected for its presiding officer 



12 Ibid, see tables passim. 

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Wisconsin Historical Society 

Andrew Jackson Kuykendall, a Democrat from "Eg;^'pt," who 
had supported Douglas in the campaign of 1858. 

IMore remarkable still was the appeal which Lincoln made to 
John A. Logan. Logan had been an extremely partisan Demo- 
crat from the early fifties. In 1853 he introduced into the State 
Legislature a drastic measure directed against the immigration 
of free negroes and was a consistent supporter of similar views.^" 
In the congressional session of 1860-6], he made an impas- 
sioned speech in which he explained the break-up of the Union 
as due m large measure to the malign influence of anti-slaver^' 
fanaticism. The Abolitionists, he said, had been "poisoning 
the minds of Northern people against Southern institutions." Re- 
ferring to Farnsworth, the radical Eepublican congressman from 
the Chicago district, he continued, "When I heard my col- 
league say in his speech that lie would not deviate one jot or 
'one tittle' from the platform upon which he was elected, I 
thought that the insanity of these times was enough to appal 
the civilized world." Logan then appealed to the moderate 
Republicans to make such concessions as would enable the loyal 
men of the South to combat secession, and proposed as an ap- 
propriate epitaph for those Republicans who refused: "The 
men w^ho would not sacrifice party prejudice to save their coun- 
try." On August 2, 1861, Logan voted with other Democrat?? 
in the House to lay on the table the Confiscation bill of 1861." 
General Grant tells us that v/hen his regiment was about to be 
mustered into the service of the United States, he was urged to 
give Logan and his Democratic colleague McClernand an op- 
portunity to address the volunteers. Grant hesitated because 
of his uncertainty about Logan's political attitude, but finally 
yielded; whereupon Logan made a speech which, in Grant's 
opinion was extraordinarily effeeti^'e in strengthening the Union 
feeling.'-'^ Having once committed himself to the cause of the 
Union, Logan gradually became as intense a partisan on the 
Republican side as he had been on the Democratic. In 1863, 



13 John M. Palmer, Personal Recollections (Cincinnati, 1901), p. 57; 
Alton (111.) Courier, 1853, passim. 

14 36th Cong., 2d sess., Cong. Globe, pt. 2, app., pp. 178-181; 37th 
Cong., 1st sess., Cong. Globe, p. 412. 

15 Grant, Memoirs, i, p. 244. 

[6S] 



Aspects of Politics in the Middle West 

lie was called to Washington to confer with Lincoln; and in 
1864, at the latter 's special request, Logan left his command to 
stump the states of Indiana and Illinois for the Republican 
ticket, on the apparent theory that Logan's services were even 
more important in the political field than in the command of 
his army corps J ^ 

The results of these new Republican tactics were decisive. 
In Wisconsin the Democrats carried only one out of six congres- 
sional districts. In Illinois the Union party elected Oglesby, 
an old Republican and a picturesque' soldier, as governor ; chose 
an administration legislature; sent Oglesbj'^'s predecessor, Ricii- 
ard Yates, to the United States Senate in place of the Demo- 
crat Richardson ; and carried eleven out of fourteen congres- 
sional districts, thus securing a majority of eight as against a 
minority of four in the Thirty-eighth Congress. These facts 
are, however, less significant for our present i)urpose than the 
rising prominence of certain elements in the administration 
party. In the Springfield district the Union and Republican 
candidate was Shelby J\I. CuUom, a Kentuckian by birth and as 
already obserA'ed, a Fillmore electoral candidate in 1856. Just 
i3ast of Cullom's district was the Seventh, corresponding roughly 
to the area now represented in Congress by Cannon and Mc- 
l^nley, which sent Bromwell, a native of IMaryland — another 
Republican of Southern stock. Farther south still, the Twelfth 
district, composed of the old counties opposite St. Louis, sent 
for the first time a Republican representative in the person of 
Jehu Baker, another native of Kentucky. ]\Iost extraordinai-y 
of all was the result in the Thirteenth district, containing nearly 
the same area as the old "Egyptian" district, Avhich in 18C0 had 
sent Logan to Congress by a Democratic majority of nearly four 
to one. It now elected, by a majority of about one thousand 
over his Democratic competitor, a Union congressman — the same 
Kuykendall who had presided over the Union convention o-! 
that year. This extraordinary political overturn for the Demo- 
cratic party is not to be explained by any new elements result- 
ing from immigration, and it is doubtful whether there was any 
considerable progress in the sympathy felt for distinctively Re- 



i« Lincoln, Works, ii, pp. 387, 596; Alexander K. McClure, Lincoln 
<ind Men of War Times (Philadelphia, 1892), p. 93. 

[69] 



Wisconsin Historical Society 

publican doctrines. Having once made their choice for the 
Union, many of these southern Illinois men seem to have devel- 
oped a fighting spirit which made them natural advocates of 
thorough-going Union policies. Undoubtedly the personal in- 
fluence of John A. Logan was the most important single factor 
in this district. In the Thirty-seventh Congress every Republi- 
can representative from Illinois in both Houses with one excep- 
tion, had been a native of New England or New York; but in 
1864 a different type of Republicanism was evidently coming on 
from the "down-state" districts. 

Nevertheless the introduction of 'these new elements into the 
administration party had less influence on the attitude of the 
congressional delegation than might perhaps have been ex- 
pected. On the first of a series of questions involving the pres- 
idential policy of Reconstruction, namely, the resolution to 
reject the members-elect from the seceding states which had 
been reorganized under President Johnson's plan, the northern 
Yankees and the new recruits from the South stood together 
against admission.^^ As the congressional programme gradually 
unfolded, however, and the breach between the President and 
the congressional radicals grew wider, we may note the gradual 
breaking away from the Union party of some original Repub- 
lican elements. Thus Doolittle and Randall drew upon them- 
selves the wrath of their former Republican associates by their 
support of Johnson's reconstruction policy; and Orville H. 
Browning, the old intimate of Lincoln, became a loyal member 
of Johnson's cabinet. During the heated political contro- 
versies of 1866, Browning and Doolittle were on terms of inti- 
mate correspondence. They were for the president as against 
the radicals, though they felt keenly the blunders', and offences 
against good taste of which he was guilty during that fateful 
year.^® 

It is certainly significant that with the coming of such new 



1" Edward MePherson, Political History of Reconstruction ("Washing- 
ton, 1875), p. 110. 

IS 111. Hist. Soc. Journal, iv, p. 169; cf. James G. Blaine, Twenty 
Years of Congress (Norwalk, Conn., 1884-86), ii, pp. 126, 149, 162; 
biographical sketch of Senator Doolittle in Wis. Hist. Soc. Proceedings^ 
1909, pp. 281-296. 

[701 



Aspects of Politics in the Middle West 

recruits as Logan, there begins also a gradual withdrawal of 
men who were among the founders of the Eepublican party. In 
general, however, the men from both States who Avere elected 
as Eepublicans or Unionists, stood together in this Congress for 
the series of measures which were intended to establish the civil 
and political equality of the negro, and to carry into effect the 
general congressional plan of reconstruction. Nearly all of 
them, for example, voted against recognizing the Johnson gov- 
ernment in North Carolina, and in favor of the measures which 
established the principle of negro suffrage in the District of 
Columbia, in t]ie .Western territories, and in Colorado. There 
was a substantial agreement also in favor of the Fourteenth 
Amendment, the great Reconstruction Act of 1867, and the 
Tenure of Office Act of the same date. To these general propo- 
sitions there were, however, two marked exceptions: In the Sen- 
ate, Doolittle voted steadily with the Democrats in support of 
the presidential policy ; and in the House, Kuykendall, the Union 
representative from the old Logan district, voted on the con- 
servative side on nearly all of these questions, though even he 
supported the Fourteenth Amendment.^^ 

It is a familiar fact that the congressional elections of 1866 
strengthened the position of the Republican radicals in Con- 
gress, though the changes were far less marked in the character 
of the Wisconsin delegation than in that of Illinois. In the lat- 
ter state, the most important changes were, first, that in the 
southern Illinois district, replacing the conservative Kuyken- 
dall by a man of distinctly radical antecedents; and, secondly, 
the return of John A. Logan to Congress as a Republican Con- 
gressman-at-large after six years' absence, followed by his 
rapid rise to leadership among the thorough-going radicals -^-f 
the House. The votes in this Congress show considerable wav- 
ering in the ranks, v.ith the new recruits appearing often as 
regulars, while the older leaders show a marked tendency toward 
independent voting. For example, in the House vote of No- 
vember 25, 1867, on a resolution for the impeachment of Presi- 
dent Johnson, Cullom and Logan were among those voting for 
impeachment; whiie B. C. Cook, E. B. AVashburne of Illinois, 
and C. C. Washburn of Wisconsin, all original Republicans, 



10 McPherson, Reconstruction, pp. 111-116, 160, 163, 164. 

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Wisconsin Historical Society 

were on the other side. On this question, however, Johnson's 
blunders served to keep the Republicans temporarily together: 
in the end, the Republicans of both delegations voted unani- 
mously for impeachment and Logan became one of the House 
managers.-" In the great senatorial court of impeachment, Illi- 
nois and Wisconsin were represented by four veteran leaders of 
the early Republican party. In each state it was the senior 
senator, the man with the more conspicuous record among the 
founders of the party, who now in 1868 stood out against the 
regular organization and voted for acquittal. On the other 
hand, the Fifteenth Amendment united all of the Republicans 
in an affirmative vote, which was natural enough for the anti- 
slavery veterans of the fifties, but must have seemed strange to 
those who had known the Logan of earlier days.-^ - 

During Grant's first administration the alienation of the old- 
school Republicans took place on a large scale, though the points 
of departure varied with different men. In the case of many 
supporters of the general reconstruction policy there gradu- 
ally developed a desire for measures of conciliation and a cer- 
tain impatience with the habit of constant interference by the 
Federal government in the internal affairs of the states. In 
the minds of some Illinois Republicans the old doctrine of states 
rights was given a new interest by the controversy between Cov- 
ernor Palmer and General Grant, on the question of using Fed- 
eral troops to restore order after the great Chicago fire. In this 
instance General Grant <lisregarded the vigorous protest of the 
Republican governor of the State. 

Another factor which seems to have weighed heavily with 
Lyman Trumbull, was the annexation policy of the administra- 
tion, especially as illustrated in the San Domingo project, fol- 
lowed as it was bj^ the arbitrary action of the Administration 
Republicans in deposing Charles Sumner from the cliairman- 
ship of the Senate committee on foreign relations. Other im- 
portant factors were the growing dissatisfaction Avith General 
Grant's political associates, the interest felt by many of the 
more independent Republicans in the reform of the civil serv- 



20 7b'fZ, pp. 264-266. 

21 Ibid, p. 399. Doolittle voted against the Pifteenth Amendment, 
but he had now definitely separated from the Republican party. 

[72] 



Aspects of Politics in the Middle West 

ice, and tlie rise of a sentiment in favor of tariti' reform.-^ It is 
doubtless true also that the irritation felt by the Germans on 
account of the sale of arms to the French Republic during the 
Franco-Prussian AVar had some inliuence with voters of that 
nationality. All of these elements contributed in varying de- 
grees to the Liberal Republican movement of 1872, and nowhere 
was the political realignment resulting from that movement 
more striking than in Wisconsin and Illinois. 

A consideration of the official leaders of the Republican party 
in 1861 with reference to their political attitude in 1872, gives 
us some startling results in both states. For the "Wisconsin 
Republicans of 1861. we get a fairly representative list of eight 
names by including the following men : Governor Randall, the 
two United States senators, Howe and Doolittle; the four Re- 
publican representatives in the Thirty-sixth and Thirty-seventh 
Congresses: and Carl Schurz, the most conspicuous among the 
Wisconsin delegates to the Chicago convention. Of this group 
of eight men, only two, Senator Howe and C. C. Washburn, 
were identified in 1872 with the Republican organization in the 
State. Of the remaining six. one died in 1862; two, Doolittle 
and Randall, had previously broken away from the party; and 
two others, including Carl Schurz, were supporters of the Lib- 
eral Republican movement. 

Still more striking results appear in a representative list of 
ante helium Republicans of Illinois. Such a list avouIcI cer- 
tainly include besides President Lincoln, Governor Yates, Sen- 
ators Trumbull and Browning, the five Republican representa- 
tives in the Thirty-sixth and Thirty-seventh Congresses, the 
three men who were associated with Browning as delegates-at- 
large to the Chicago convention, and John ]M. Palmer, who was 
probablj^ next to Trumbull, the most conspicuous of the Anti- 
Nebraska Democrats. Of these thirteen men, two were dead in 
1872, and one had left the state. Of the remaining ten, four — 
Trumbull, Browning, Davis, and Palmer were leaders of the 
revolt against the Republican organization. Of the Republi- 
can state officers who held office Avith Governor Yates in 1861, 

22 Cf. Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, ii, pp. 521-525; George S. 
Merriam, Life and Times of Samuel Bowles (N, Y., 1885), ii, p. 131; 
the Nation, 1871, 1872, passim. 

[73] 



Wisconsin Historical Society 

four, including the secretary of state, the state treasurer, the 
auditor of public accounts, and the state superintendent of 
public instruction, Avere among the insurgents of 1872.-^ Of 
special interest is the alienation from Lincoln's party of men 
who had been among his most intimate associates. It will 
hardly be questioned that David Davis and Leonard Swett de- 
serve a very high place among Lincoln 's confidential lieutenants 
in the campaign of 1860, and Thurlow Weed, their distinguished 
opponent in the Chicago convention, asserted in his autobiog- 
raphy that they ''contributed more than all others to his [Lin- 
coln's] nomination."-* 01' the Anti-Nebraskan Democrats who 
worked with Davis and Schurz in that convention, the most im- 
portant was probably John M. Palmer. Other men who, in one 
way and another, sustained confidential relations with Lincoln 
were Gustav Koerner and William H. Herndon, his law part- 
ner and biographer. All of these men were also among the 
bolters of 1872. 

The Nation in its issue of March 28, 1872, effectively de- 
scribed the lack of real unity in the Eepnblican party after the 
passing of the old issues : 

The one thing necessary to constitute a man a good Republican was, 
for seven years at least, loyalty to the government as represented 
by the majority in Congress, and hatred of rebels. The government is 
now out of danger, the rebels have disappeared, and slavery has per- 
ished. 

Cnder these conditions disintegration was inevitable, and the 
regular party leaders were opposed in 1872 by a surprising pro- 
portion of the very men Avho in 1856 had abandoned former 
party affiliations in their enthusiasm for the anti-slavery prin- 
ciples upon which the Republican party was founded. In 1872, 
most of these seceders contented themselves with attaching the 
adjective ''Liberal" to the old party name of Republican, but 
the breach was too serious to be easily healed. Even in 1872, 
Doolittle was chairman of the Democratic national convention, 
and during the following decade many of the old Republican 



2^'. Data compiled from the files of the New York Tribune, 1872; the 
official blue-books of Illinois and Wisconsin; and official proceedings of 
Republican conventions, 1856-72. 

-4 Thurlow Weed, AutoMography (Boston, 1884), i, p. 602. 

[74] 



Aspects of Politics in the Middle West 

leaders — among them, Trumbull, Palmer, and Koerner — threw 
in their lot definitely with the Democratic party and lent the 
support of their names to Democratic tickets. 

As the older leaders fell away, there came to the front a group 
of men who had no part in the pYoneer work of 1856. In the 
Republican convention of 1872, the most conspicuous figures 
were doubtless Grant himself, the presidential nominee; Shelby 
M. Cullom, who made the nominating speech; John A. Logan, 
and Richard G. Oglesby — the two latter were obvious favorites 
in the convention and made speeches which attracted general 
attention.^^ All of these men, except Oglesby, were definitely 
outside of the Republican party in 1856. Cullom was then in 
the American camp, while Grant and Logan were supporters of 
Buchanan. The presidential candidate of the Republican party 
in 1872, standing on a platform which rehearsed as among the 
achievements of that party the passage of the Thirteenth, Four- 
teenth, and Fifteenth amendments, was a man who had said 
quite simply and frankly in 1863, '"I never was an Abolitionist, 
not even what could be called anti-slavery."-" The most effec- 
tive champion in Illinois of this candidate on this platform was 
the same Logan, who before the war had sought to increase the 
rigors of the Black Code in his own state, and who in 1861 had 
charged the responsibility for secession against the ''dema- 
gogues and fanatics" of the Republican party.-^ 

In conclusion, I may perhaps be permitted to call attention 
to a curious fact brought out quite independently of the pres- 
ent inquiry. Having recently constructed a building at the 
University of Illinois, to be known as Lincoln Hall, we have 
been interested in preparing, after consultation with various 
persons throughout the state, a list of the Illinois men who, hav- 
ing been associated with Lincoln either in the conflict against 
slavery or in the work of preserving the Union, seemed espe- 
cially to deserve conspicuous recognition. An effort was made 
to have the list representative so far as possible of different 
phases of political action. The nine men finallj'- selected for 



25 New York Tribune, semi-weekly edition, especially June 7. 

26 Letter from U. S. Grant to E. B. Washburne, dated Aug. 30, 1863, 
<;ited in McPherson, Reconstruction, p. 294. 

27 36th Cong., 2d sess., Cong. Globe, app. p. 178. 

[75 1 



Wisconsin Historical Society 

this purpose were: Douglas, Trumbull, Yates, Palmer, Logan^ 
Lovejoy, Koerner, Davis, and ]\Iedill. Of these nine, seven were 
living in 1872. Of these seven survivors, not more than two 
were in that year identified with the same political party t3 
which they belonged in 1860. Of the six men living in 1872, 
who were Kepublicans in 1860, four were associated with the 
Liberal Republican movement, and none of the fc^ur was 
ever restored to regular standing in the Republican party. Of 
the two men who were Democrats in 1860, the one survivor in 
1872 was an intensely partisan leader of the Republican party."' 

28 I am quite awai'e of the necessity of much more extended studies 
before a quantitatively accurate statement can be made with regard 
to the changes in party membership, 1860-72. I trust that the facts 
here presented with reference to the comparatively small group of 
party leaders may stimulate further inquiries in this field. 



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